Quartered Safe Out Here: A Recollection of the War in Burma [Paperback]

George MacDonald Fraser (Author), George MacDonald Fraser (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1994

George MacDonald Fraser's recollection of the war in Burma.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"There is no doubt that it is one of the great personal memoirs of the Second World War." -- John Keegan

“Fraser manages to capture the flavor of his comrades while so vividly portraying the grittiness of combat.” -- The Historical Novel Society --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From the Publisher

"A Brilliantly entertaining read, with all the narrative power, gift for dialogue and surprising twists and turns that would be expected of flashman's creator...Fraser is unrivalled at the storyteller's essential crafts..." - Gary Mead, Financial Times

"This is a book as good as anything Fraser has written...decorated with the beautifully-observed dialogue of which he is a master...A moving and penetrating contribution to the literature of the Burma campaign" - Max Hastings, Daily Telegraph

"His new book deserves to reach out to an even larger audience...The sense of front-line danger is palpable and the smell of action is remarkable. His descriptions of the sudden violent actions are breathtaking. This is battle as it is done" - Melvyn Bragg, Evening Standard

"Fraser's is quite the most vividly realistic account of the sharp end of the war in Burma that i have read...If you have enjoyed Fraser's 'Flashman' books you will enjoy the racy, pacy, utterly authentic account of far away long ago soldiering" - John Mellors, London Magazine

"A great writer has raised a memorial to a lost generation" - John Colvin

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins (July 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0002726874
• ISBN-13: 978-0002726870
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,216,413 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sobering, relevant, and important, August 25, 1999

By 

John Knutsen (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Quartered Safe Out Here: A Recollection of the War in Burma (Paperback)

Fraser's is one of the finest war memoirs I've ever read, and for so many reasons. He has a gift for illustrating the life of the combat soldier in ways that are at once terrifying, hilarious, and sometimes just plain bizarre. His discovery in the field that he had a gift for brewing tea is unforgettable, as is his account of falling down a well in the middle of a battle, his comrades cracking jokes about it as the chaos and noise of battle rages all around them. Among the most remarkable things about Fraser's book are his comparisons between the official histories of what happened with what he actually experienced; the official history of one engagement, for example, records only that a tank was destroyed and so many men killed or wounded on each side, but Fraser describes what that burning tank SMELLED like and how it attracted the attention of Japanese soldiers throughout the night. These are the things we rarely get from ordinary histories of battles and wars. His book does not reduce the soldiers to a list of statistics. One learns to care about them or loathe them almost as much as Fraser did.

The final few chapters are particularly sobering. We owe so much to the men and women who fought and served in this war. Fraser's book has many important and enduring lessons for all of us, but particularly for those of us born in the postwar boom. Highly, highly recommended!

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Black Cat tracks its prey through Burma, June 20, 2001

By 

Joseph Haschka (Glendale, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Quartered Safe Out Here: A Recollection of the War in Burma (Paperback)

As a young man, George MacDonald Fraser was a "ranker" (enlisted man) assigned to the 17th (Black Cat) Division of the British 14th Indian Army as it pursued the Japanese south through Burma after the latter's resounding defeat at the gates of India, at Imphal. Fraser's narrative history of his personal contribution to this campaign is QUARTERED SAFE OUT HERE.

Written decades after the fact, this book does not pretend to be a comprehensive history of the Burma Theater in the last months of World War II. Rather, it's the war from the perspective of Nine Section in which Fraser fought, first as a Private, then Lance Corporal. (A "section" is the smallest operating unit of an infantry platoon, i.e. 8-10 men.) Besides being a vivid retelling of the author's recollections to the extent that he remembers, it's also an intimate portrait of the organization, weapons, tactics and camaraderie of the British Army at section level at that time, place, and conflict. It's a story told with the humor, intelligence and introspection that comes with maturity and hindsight. And, though some of Fraser's bitterness towards his old foe occasionally shows, age does dull the sharp edges.

"I remember watching, a year or two ago, televised interviews with old Japanese soldiers who had fought in the war ... sitting in their gardens in their sports shirts, blinking cheerfully in the sunlight, reminiscing in throat-clearing croaks about battles long ago. It crossed my mind: were any of you on the Pyawbwe slope, and lived to tell the tale? Well, if they did, at this time of day I don't mind."

Fraser is a truly gifted writer. After VJ Day, he applied for, and was awarded, a commission as a subaltern (2nd Lieutenant) in a Scottish Highland division posted to the Middle East. In this capacity, his experiences served as the basis for his quite wonderful and comedic McAuslan series of fictional stories (collected and available from Amazon.co.uk in THE COMPLETE MCAUSLAN). I unreservedly recommend both of these two books to anyone who has ever served in any branch of the armed forces, no matter what country. I myself was in the U.S. Navy, and Fraser's works are in the "can't put down" category.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fraser's own story and own voice, February 23, 2001

By 

Alec Dinwoodie (SF, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Quartered Safe Out Here: A Recollection of the War in Burma (Paperback)

This is Fraser's memoir, written decades later, of his experiences as a teenaged infantryman fighting the Japanese in Burma with General Slim's army in World War II. He doesn't exaggerate those experiences or attempt to twist them into a novelish coming-of-age story or a Flashman-style comic adventure. There is a strong element of the old-style "dialect story" in the recreated dialogue between Fraser and his comrades, most of whom are from Cumberland in the North of England, but these are both convincing and fun, and when the group comes under fire you share Fraser's feelings of comradeship with them in part because of that dialogue.

What surprised and pleased me most about this book is the imprint of Fraser's own personality and strong opinions --- Flashman he is not. He's an old man now, and has grown more conservative and just a little cranky, but he's no less sharp an observer, resulting in a voice that's perfect (for my tastes) for first-person narration of and commentary on witnessed historical events. He indulges in some sentimentality that his famous character Flashman would have mocked --- about the characteristics of "Englishmen," for instance --- but knowing what he experienced in Burma you feel that he's more than earned the right to sentimentalize. Toward the end he leaves his narrative to defend the use of the atom bomb against Japan; he says that to protect his grandchildren he'd "gladly throw the switch on the entire Japanese nation," and that if you can't say the same you've got no business being a parent. I was shocked and delighted with the honesty of that sentence, and of this book as a whole.